Lawyer: Taconic crash driver to be exhumed

(AP) - The body of a woman who killed herselfand seven other people by driving a minivan the wrong way on aparkway and crashing into an SUV will be exhumed for testing in anattempt to counter findings

News 12 Staff

May 27, 2014, 9:41 PM

Updated 3,781 days ago

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(AP) - The body of a woman who killed herselfand seven other people by driving a minivan the wrong way on aparkway and crashing into an SUV will be exhumed for testing in anattempt to counter findings that she was drunk, a family lawyersaid Tuesday.
Attorney Dominic Barbara said Tuesday night on CNN's "LarryKing Live" that Diane Schuler could have suffered a minor strokebrought on by an abscess in her mouth.
The July 26 crash on the Taconic State Parkway, just north ofNew York City, killed Schuler, her daughter and three young niecesin the minivan and three men in the SUV. Toxicology tests found the36-year-old woman had been drinking heavily and smoking marijuana.
But her husband, Daniel Schuler, denied that possibility andhired Barbara and a private investigator. He said Tuesday he wantsrelatives of the other victims to know that "A drunk driver didnot do this to your family."
"I think she had a stroke," he said. "Something to do withher teeth."
Barbara said the just-released autopsy report found no evidenceof chronic alcoholism in Diane Schuler's liver, pancreas, stomachor esophagus.
He had previously suggested that diabetes or a lump on her legcould have caused her crash, and he said Tuesday it was possiblethat when her body was charred in the crash the sugar in her bloodturned to alcohol.
During the show, statements were read from representatives ofthe family of Daniel Longo, one of the men killed in the SUV. Onesaid Daniel Schuler's refusal to accept that his wife was drunk is"appalling, offensive and hurtful."
Schuler, of West Babylon, said his 5-year-old son, Bryan, theonly survivor from the minivan, had broken arms and a broken legand would make a full recovery. The boy is in a children's hospitalfor rehabilitation.Photo courtesy of NewsdayClick NEXT for more videos.